Library Partners

Google works with over 40 libraries around the world to digitize their collections and make
them available to users. Here's a sample of some of the libraries we've partnered with.

Austrian National Library

Our agreement with Google is a milestone in the history of the Austrian National
Library. For the first time, the complete public domain collection of the National
Austrian Library – one of the most renowned historic collections of books in the
world – will be accessible online to a worldwide audience for free at any time. This
project fulfills an important goal of the Austrian National Library: the
democratization of knowledge.

–Dr. Johanna Rachinger, General Director of the Austrian National Library

Bavarian State Library

With today's announcement we are opening our library to the world and bringing the
true purpose of libraries - the discovery of books and knowledge –a decisive step
further in into the digital era. This is an exciting effort to help readers around
the world discover and access Germany's rich literary tradition online – whenever and
wherever they want.

Columbia University

Our participation in the Google Books Library Project will add significantly to the
extensive digital resources the Libraries already deliver. It will enable the
Libraries to make available more significant portions of its extraordinary archival
and special collections to scholars and researchers worldwide in ways that will
ultimately change the nature of scholarship.

–James Neal, University Librarian and Vice-President for Information Services at
Columbia University

Big Ten Academic Alliance (formerly the CIC)

This partnership with Google is one of the most ambitious undertakings in the history
of the CIC, and sets the stage for a remarkable transformation of library services
and information access. We're opening up these resources as both a common good shared
among the universities, as well as a public good available more broadly.

Harvard University

The new century presents important new opportunities for libraries, including
Harvard's, and for those individuals who use them. The collaboration between major
research libraries and Google will create an important public good of benefit to
students, teachers, scholars, and readers everywhere. The project harnesses the power
of the Internet to allow users to identify books of interest with a precision and at
a speed previously unimaginable. The user will then be guided to find books in local
libraries or to purchase them from publishers and book vendors. And, for books in the
public domain, there will be even broader access.

Cornell University Library

Research libraries today are integral partners in the academic enterprise through
their support of research, teaching and learning. They also serve a public good by
enhancing access to the works of the world's best minds. As a major research library,
Cornell University Library is pleased to join its peer institutions in this
partnership with Google. The outcome of this relationship is a significant reduction
in the time and effort associated with providing scholarly full-text resources
online.

Ghent University Library

We are thrilled to open our books and our library to the world through this project.
This is an exciting effort to help readers - no matter where they are - discover and
access part of Belgium and Europe's rich literary tradition and culture. In addition,
we are about to start a multi-year project to renovate our library building, and
while our library's doors will be closed, its books will remain open to students and
academics through Google Books.

Keio University Library

The Google project allows us to make our collections visible worldwide, so that our
books will contribute to research and education on a global scale. Our university was
founded in 1858 by Yukichi Fukuzawa, who was well known for his commitment to
bringing information and media forward in modern Japan. This makes Keio ideally
suited to be the first Japanese library to participate in Google Books.

Lyon Municipal Library

Our decision to digitize and make available online part of the Lyon Municipal
Library's collection allows us to open our library doors to the rest of the world.
Digitization, combined with the increased usage of the Internet now allows to
preserve collections - with digital copies - while also opening up the possibility
for users to access and consult books from a distance

University of California

By unlocking the wealth of information maintained within our libraries and exposing
it to the latest that search technologies have to offer, the University of California
is continuing its work to harness technology and our library collections in support
of research, learning, patient care, and cultural engagement. In this new world,
people will make connections between information and ideas that were hitherto
inaccessible, driving the pace of innovation in all areas of life – academic,
economic, and civic – and enhancing the use of the world's great libraries.
With digital copies of our library holdings, we will also provide a safeguard for the
countless thousands of authors, publishers, and readers who would be devastated by
catastrophic loss occasioned, for example, by natural disaster. Anyone who doubts the
impact that such disaster can have on our cultural memory need look no further than
the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on our sister libraries in the Gulf
States.
As an institution that has built these vast collections as a public good and in the
public trust, joining the Google library partnership was the right thing to do.

The National Library of Catalonia

It once was the case that only those who could visit our library were able to 'visit'
our books. Now, anyone interested in the vast number of titles our library houses
will be able to find and access them online – or perhaps just discover them by chance
via a simple search of the Google Books index. This is a tremendous step forward for
enabling readers all around the world to discover and access the rich history of
Catalonian, Castilian, and Latin American literature.

The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library Research Libraries were struck by the convergence of
Google's mission with their own. We see the digitization project as a
transformational moment in the access to information and wanted not only to learn
from it but also to influence it. Our response at present is a conservative one, with
a limited number of volumes in excellent condition, in selected languages and in the
public domain. With appropriate evaluation of this limited participation, we look
forward to a more expansive collaboration in the future.

–David Ferriero, Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research
Libraries, The New York Public Library

Oxford University

The Bodleian Library's mission, from its founding in 1602, has been based on Sir
Thomas Bodley's vision of a library serving the worldwide 'Republic of Letters', with
the Library's collections open to all who have need to use them. To this day over 60%
of readers who use and work in the Bodleian Library have no direct affiliation with
the University of Oxford. The Google Library Project in Oxford testifies to our
ongoing commitment to enable and facilitate access to our content for the scholarly
community and beyond. The initiative will carry forward Sir Thomas Bodley's vision
and the ethos of the Bodleian Library into the digital age, allowing readers from
around the world to access the Library's collections over the World Wide Web.

Princeton University

Generations of Princeton librarians have devoted themselves to building a remarkable
collection of books in thousands of subjects and dozens of languages. Having the
portion of that collection not covered by copyright available online will make it
easier for Princeton students and faculty to do research, and joining the Google
partnership allows us to share our collection with researchers worldwide, a step very
much in keeping with the University's unofficial motto of Princeton in the nation's
service and in the service of all nations.

Stanford University

Stanford has been digitizing texts for years now to make them more accessible and
searchable, but with books, as opposed to journals, such efforts have been severely
limited in scope for both technical and financial reasons. The Google arrangement
catapults our effective digital output from the boutique scale to the truly
industrial. Through this program and others like it, Stanford intends to promote
learning and stimulate innovation.

University Complutense of Madrid

Out-of-copyright books previously only available to people with access to the
University Complutense of Madrid's Library, or the money to travel, will now be
accessible to everyone with an Internet connection, wherever they live. We are quite
literally opening our library to the world. The opportunities for education are
phenomenal and we are delighted to be working with Google on this project.

University Library of Lausanne

Out of copyright books previously only available to people with access to Lausanne's
university library, will now be accessible to everyone with an Internet connection,
wherever they live. We are quite literally opening our library to the world. The
opportunities for education are phenomenal and we are delighted to be working with
Google on this project.

–Hubert A. Villard, Director of the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne.

University of Virginia

The U.Va. Library was a pioneer in digitizing public domain materials. We started
with printed texts in 1992, and faculty and students quickly discovered that
long-forgotten and out-of-print texts could reach new audiences and spark new
scholarship. We have often talked about libraries without walls, but now we are even
closer to realizing that vision, thanks to this partnership.

University of Texas at Austin

University libraries in our society are entrusted with the critical mission of
collecting and providing access to information spanning the entire range of human
knowledge. Our libraries are also responsible for effectively preserving this
knowledge and ensuring access to it over vast periods of time. At the University of
Texas at Austin, we hold a deep commitment to each of these objectives and believe
that participating in this venture will help ensure our ability to meet those
commitments far into the future.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

The combined library collections of the University of Wisconsin- Madison Libraries
and the Wisconsin Historical Society Library comprise one of the largest collections
of documents and historical materials in the United States. Through this landmark
partnership with Google, Wisconsin is taking a leading role in preserving public
domain works for future generations and making the Library's resources widely
available for education and research. This effort truly exemplifies the vision of The
Wisconsin Idea – the notion that the boundaries of the university are limitless. The
Wisconsin libraries have been following in this tradition. The Google digitization
efforts will enable the libraries to expand access to public domain materials that
have heretofore only been accessible in the libraries. Much of this material is rare
and one-of-a-kind, providing a rich, open source of information for educational,
research and general public use.

University of Michigan

The project with Google is core to our mission as a great public university to
advance knowledge – on campus and beyond. By joining this partnership that makes our
library holdings searchable through Google, UM serves as an agent in an initiative
that radically increases the availability of information to the public. The
University of Michigan embraces this project as a means to make information available
as broadly and conveniently as possible. Moreover, the UM Library embarked on this
ground-breaking partnership for a number of very compelling reasons:

We believe that, beyond providing basic access to library collections, this
activity is critically transformative, enabling the University Library to build on
and reconceive vital library services for the new millennium.

This work will create new ways for users to search and access library content,
opening up our collections to our own users and to users throughout the world.

Although we have engaged in large-scale, preservation-based conversion of
materials in the Library's collection for several years, and have been a leader in
digital preservation efforts among research libraries, we know that only through
partnerships of this sort can conversion of this scale be achieved. Our program is
strong, and we have been able to digitize approximately 5,000 volumes/year;
nevertheless, at this rate, it would take us more than a thousand years to digitize
our entire collection.